Does anyone else find the poor German Shepard all kitted out for battle in the new Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer a bit disconcerting?  I swear that I saw a laser gun on its back.  I don't normally have strong feelings when it come to animal rights, but well-trained dogs don't exactly excel in the free will department.  That dog, and the real dogs its based on, are basically combat slaves with the emotions of infant children.  Maybe now thanks to the new graphics tech the Xbox One wields, even dogs have entered the Uncanny Valley.

Whatever, it sure did look impressive, right?  I guess that's all that matters in this particular context.  You can see the full battle-dog comparison, along with battle-human, and battle-jungle comparisons in the following Modern Warfare 3/COD: Ghosts comparison trailer.

Today’s Xbox ONE reveal conference was capped off with the worldwide premiere of the first, official trailer for Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Ghosts. From what was explained at the conference and what I gather from the trailer, it appears as though the United States has fallen to a foreign enemy and the game will chronicle the tale of a group of American freedom fighters known as Ghosts who are striking back. Does anyone else get a Homefront vibe? Not that such a vibe would be a bad thing...

You can check out the full trailer below and look forward to the game this November:
   

In two days, you'll see the full preview of Call of Duty: Ghosts along with the reveal of the next Xbox. For now, you can check out five seconds of the game as a work in progress. A lot of what you'll see are wireframe models and a quick shot of the dev tools that are used to create a character. While not too much, it's there to whet your appetite for more but thankfully it's just a few days away. You can check out the Vine video here.

Tomasz Gop, whose name may recognize from the credits for The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, is the lead developer on Lords of the Fallen for City Interactive.  Lords of the Fallen is a, just unveiled, fantasy action-RPG that is both "demanding" and "strategic."  It's scheduled for release on PC and next-gen consoles in 2014.

Players will assume the role of Harkyn as he stands against a seemingly unbeatable supernatural entity.  Right now, most of the details are unspecific, however, Lords of the Fallen is going to introduced to the world at large at this year's E3 Expo that runs from June 11 to June 13 in Los Angeles.  Hopefully, at that point we'll get some concrete details.

Until then, you can visit www.cigames.com and Lords of the Fallen on Facebook to learn more.   [READ MORE]

Do you smell that? Do you smell when the Rock will be cookin' on your console? WWE 2K14, which 2K Games acquired after THQ went bye bye, will be released on October 29th according to 2K Games' fourth quarter report.

The Yukes developed game will feature The Rock as the cover star and will make it's 2K debut this Fall. The last THQ published WWE '13 game was released last October. This will be the first in a five year agreement with the WWE to publish their games. 

The game should hit all current consoles EXCEPT for the Wii U. That is, if rumors are to be believed that there are no WWE games planned for the Nintendo console for the foreseeable future. 

Beyond: Two Souls has a 2,000-page script but will only have 10 hours of gameplay. Activision's CEO is one of the highest-paid in America, while EA lopped off limbs left and right. But it's wasn’t all bad this week--Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s pulpy VHS shtick won hearts and minds, and critical darling Fez finally spun its way onto PC.

What are you playing this weekend?

Russell Archey | staff writer | Twitter @neoscyther
More than likely I'll be working on my next review piece, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move. It's been awhile since I've played a Mario vs. DK game, so I'm really looking forward to spending time with this one.

Sean Cahill | staff writer | Twitter @seancahill2
I'll be sitting down for some Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on the 360 for the latest review piece. Outside of that, after beating BioShock Infinite in the past couple of days, I'll probably return to Tomb Raider to finally beat that and, perhaps, Far Cry 3.

Sean Colleli | staff writer
It's time to hit the indie Steam backlog, probably with some They Bleed Pixels. I might also pick up DLC Quest; my girlfriend tells me it's pretty funny. Then again, I might also get Mars: War Logs, Zeno Clash II, or of course Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Decisions, decisions.

Jeremy Duff | senior staff writer | Twitter @duff3c
This weekend I need to sink a bit of time into The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, which is shaping up to be way better than I expected. I might also have to dip my toes back into Soul Sacrifice because, well, those monsters aren't going to slay themselves.

Charles Husemann | editor-in-chief | Twitter @chusemann
This weekend will be spent working on Farm Simulator: Suburban Edition as I finally get around to cleaning up the garden areas in my backyard and start working on taming the yard. On a digital game front, I'm going to be spending time with MechWarrior Online as I continue level grinding on my next sets of mechs to elite status.  Time permitting, I'm going to try and progress a bit on BioShock Infinite and possibly even start a playthrough of Half-Life 2 as a recent HL2DM session has reignited my love of the game.

Randy Kalista | staff writer | Twitter @randykalista
My 14-day trial of EVE Online expired, so my character's early explorer/archaeology career is on ice indefinitely. They've done extensive work with the tutorials. It unlocked entire branches of gameplay too complicated to figure out on my own before. So now I need a pick-me-up. I would revisit The Walking Dead or Planescape: Torment but, ugh. Downers. Some Sacred Citadel beat 'em up action might do the trick. Jeremy and I co-op'd a bit, but it crashed as soon as we reached the first boss, some ancient, 'roided-up Treant.

Mike Mahardy | staff writer | Twitter @mmahardy
I've been getting back into nightly loot fests in Diablo III, so those will be punctuated by attempts to finally become a fighting game fan. I have a tendency to try out most new fighting games, but after trying Injustice: Gods Among Us at GDC, I think my love for the license will pull me through.

Rumor no more: Call of Duty- Ghosts is a real thing and coming this Fall courtesy of Infinity Ward. Hot on the heels of the new site John mentioned a few days back, Activision has released a teaser trailer for the next installment in the blockbuster series which will be fully unveiled on May 21, 2013. The new game will deliver a whole new world, new characters, and a new experience. The game is being revealed at the Xbox: The New Generation event being held in Redmond, Washington to reveal the next Xbox console.

The game will release for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 5, 2013. It will also be available for the next generation of consoles as well. You can read the full press release on the next page and check out the teaser trailer for the project below:
  [READ MORE]

Through leaked advertisements, the next Call of Duty game should be Call of Duty: Ghosts. Now, Activision has a teaser site up that further affirms that this is most likely the title.

The website features a mask of Ghost, the British soldier who died in Modern Warfare 2. The site lets you hover over the mask where there are links to various Twitter or Facebook accounts mentioning the game. 

Now, Ghosts could be a prequel to Modern Warfare 2, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's about someone else taking up the mantle of Ghost in events after Modern Warfare 2. Highly unlikely, but I wouldn't put it past them to do so. The game's being made by Infinity Ward and is due out this Fall with word is the game will be unveiled May 1st.

I'm by no means a Marvel pantheon expert.  It sort of begins and ends with Spiderman for me.  So all I know about Deadpool is that he is crazy, full of himself, and crazy.  Did I mention that he was crazy?  I learned all that just today.  No doubt, if you don't buy his game, he'll deep-fry something you love - or whatever Deadpool's traditional enemy disposal method is.  I don't really know.  However, I do know that if you don't pre-order his game, unsurprisingly called Deadpool, you'll miss out on the following pre-order bonuses, straight from the mouth-hole of Deadpool himself:

• MY “Merc with a Map Pack” DLC (confetti explosion!) adds two new maps – GRT Plaza and Inside the Tower – to Deadpool Challenge mode, as well as two b-b-b-b-bonus costumes – the D-Pooly and Uncanny X-Force suits only for use in the unlockable Infinite mode where your stats are tracked on a global leaderboard.
• Exclusive digital wallpaper for my PowerUp Rewards friends featuring who else – me!!! I’ll probably be, like, you know, totally ripped in it and all. No bigsies. – U.S. Only
• A (drum roll, please) midnight launch party at the GameStop with the most pre-orders (more drums!) paid BY Activision (now the bassoon!) with a LIVE appearance from ME, Das Pool! Now’s your chance, Kodiak, Alaska GameStop customers! – U.S. Only

• A $5 Amazon credit towards select Marvel graphic novels– but seriously… buy a Deadpool graphic novel.
• An exclusive digital wallpaper and digital cover sleeve, because what are you doing not staring at my perfectly sculpted body every waking moment of the day?

It's almost that time of year again, as QuakeCon 2013 fast approaches.  While the event will be free for all who attend, there will be premium packages that will be available to pre-order on a first-come first-serve basis on April 15th.  The four packages that will be available range from $30 to $90 and include things such as official t-shirts, a Logitech G400 mouse, select and reserve your seat for the BYOC area, and more.  Read on for a complete list of what each package includes, and get ready to pre-register on April 15th at 7:00pm CST / 8:00pm EST at http://registration.quakecon.org. [READ MORE]

David Hayter has been a staple of the Metal Gear series for a long, long time. But, it looks like Hideo Kojima and the gang are going in a different direction with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

A post by Mr. Hayter himself says that he had lunch with someone from the production and they just said they wouldn't be needing him. No explanation, no reason, nothing was given. 

It's kinda sad being that David,as far as in the US is concerned, is synonymous with Snake (Solid or Naked). His first stint was in 1998 for the PlayStation game so it's been a good 15 years of him being a part of the series. Alas, it seems someone else is going to be voicing the main character this time around. 

?Thanks David for all the wonderful times listening to your voice as we took on our enemies in Metal Gear.

We've had long suspected that The Phantom Pain trailer released during The Spike VGAs were in fact Metal Gear Solid V. And at GDC 2013 today, that suspicion has been confirmed.

Kojima took the stage and said that The Phantom Pain, combined with Ground Zeros, is Metal Gear Solid V. So, there you have it folks. It's running on the new Fox Engine, which is set for the next generation of consoles. I'm guessing this means no PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 and that it's heading to the PlayStation 4 and maybe the next Xbox. Actually, I think it will be on the net Xbox as the fake developer page for The Phantom Pain listed Microsoft as one of its platforms. 

Here's the GDC Metal Gear Solid V trailer for everyone to get a look at.
 

God of War got slammed for stomping on a female’s face and handing out a trophy called “Bros Before Hos,” EA is giving away a free game to anybody suffering through SimCity’s launch, and the Tomb Raider reboot is so good no one’s even talking about Lara getting threatened with rape anymore. What are you playing this weekend?

RUSSELL ARCHEY | Staff Writer | Twitter @neoscyther
I know I'm sounding like a broken record week after week, but I just love spending quality time in Skyrim.  I almost have enchanting to 100, and smithing is well on its way there as well. Quest-wise, I only have a few story quests to go, so I'm mainly improving the skills needed to gear up for those. Hopefully in about two weeks time I'll have something different to put here. Not that Skyrim is a bad thing, of course.

NATHAN CARTER | Staff Writer | Twitter @natedoggcata
I think I’m going to switch it up this weekend. While I will still have my Left 4 Dead 2 sessions, most of my time this weekend will be spent with the new Tomb Raider which is absolutely incredible and my front runner for game of the year. Everything about this game is just amazing. The storytelling, the graphics, the gameplay--all outstanding and it sounds absolutely amazing with my Turtle Beach headset as well. Finally, I will be hopping back into some Dead or Alive 5 which is pretty amazing in itself. I know a lot of people dismiss DOA because of all the bouncing boobs and bathing suits, but underneath all of its juvenile humor is a deep and fun fighting game.

SEAN COLLELI | Staff Writer
Oddly enough, this is going to be a DS Lite weekend for me. I finally tracked down two elusive JRPGs for the trusty little portable: Rune Factory 2 arrived a few days ago and Infinite Space should be in the mail now. Why is it that these great games that only came out a couple years ago at most, are now sought-after collector's items that run $60 - $70 secondhand, and just the bare cartridge without the case or manual at that? I hate resorting to Amazon and eBay on these things but the publishers aren't giving me much choice--there wasn't a single copy of Infinite Space at any GameStop, Play N Trade or mom n' pop game store within 100 miles of Columbus. I'd much rather pay full retail price for a fresh shrinkwrapped copy instead of the ridiculously inflated secondhand prices for a solitary cart that's been through God knows what in some kid's backpack.

JEREMY DUFF | Senior Staff Writer | Twitter @duff3c
Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of this GoW "outrage." That being said, I will be spending this weekend putting my bros before my hoes and playing a lot of God of War: Ascension as well as trying to level up the rest of the roster of Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds.

CHARLES HUSEMANN | Editor-in-Chief, Twitter @chusemann
Will be spending some quality time with SimCity and MechWarrior Online this weekend. I kind of wish someone could combine the two as I'd love to run around my city in my Death Knell commando obliterating misbehaving Sims.

RANDY KALISTA | Staff Writer | Twitter @randykalista
Need to brush up on my Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. After a year-long hiatus, I'm consistently ranking fourth (out of four) on every mission, forcing squad mates to treat me like a Ressuci Annie doll with a gun rather than a Reaper killa with attitude. Also, former Gaming Nexus staffer, Charlie Sinhaseni, who's now PR for the embattled SimCity brand, is prodding me to get my inner civil engineer on and tackle EA's newly installed servers. Just have to make sure my wife doesn't "reticulate" my "spline" for dropping $80 on the digital deluxe.

MIKE MAHARDY | Staff Writer | Twitter @mmahardy
I'll be checking out Dead Space 3's Awakened DLC this weekend to see if it really returns to the horror roots of the series. Aside from that, I'll dive into Castlevania: Mirror of Fate to see what I htink about the next portable installation in the series.

JOHN YAN | Senior Hardware Editor | Twitter @thejohnyan
I will be playing StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm all weekend while checking out SimCity and maybe throw in a run or two of Diablo 3.